September 27, 1954…”Tonight” Debuts On NBC
September 27, 1954…”Tonight” Debuts On NBC
Below is a rare NBC operations log from October 4, 1954. This log is from one week after the debut, and reveals the origin of “the first 15 minutes”, which confounded both Jack Paar and Johnny Carson until January of 1967, when Carson demanded an 11:30 start time.
Notice at the bottom of the sheet, the show at 11:15, just before “Tonight” is…”The Steve Allen Show”!
Prior to the debut of “Tonight”, Allen’s local late show on WNBT, was very popular and it was thought best to ease the very large local audience into this new show with 15 minutes of monologue on local, NYC topics.
Now we know that this 15 minute lead in was actually designated “The Steve Allen Show” (just like the old WNBT show) and was not “officially” part of the “Tonight” broadcast, but this remnant was a pain to everyone but Allen, until 1967.
This very odd 15 minute opening window had allowed stations to join either at 11:15 or 11:30. Back in 1954, if there was local late news, it was a 15 minute cast at most. In the early sixties, many locals newscasts moved to 30 minutes, which was a problem for the hosts.
The problem Paar and Carson had with this “fu**ing 15 minutes” (as Carson called it) was that, when most stations joined at 11:30, the monologue was over and done! Only the guest part of the show was seen in the 11:30 markets.
Over the years, both Paar and Carson used different methods to fill the 15 minutes. Early on, both Paar and Carson started their monologues at 11:15, which may explain why there is so little video of the early Parr and Carson monologues. These 11:15 – 11:30 segments were most likely, again for the local NY audience,
Later, both opted to use their sidekicks and the band to fill that time, so they could begin the monologue at 11:30. But even then, both the studio and home audiences were left in limbo waiting for the star and his guests.
At this link is a rare 1965 “first 15 minutes” from 11:15 – 11:30 on New Year’s Eve from the Carson era, with Ed and Skitch doing the honors.
Also seen here are two debut ads from New York and Chicago. Notice that in Chicago, only the the last hour of the show as broadcast from 11-12 local time, which would have been the 12-1 hour of the NY show.
I remember Jerry Lewis filling in…he was awesome….loved the Procrastinator’s Club….gonna form one, but hasn’t gotten around to it yet!
He was a very intelligent man…married to Audrey or Jane Meadows…one was the wife on the Honeymooners….not her, but her sis was his wife.
I absolutely loved Steve Allen….watched him all the time. “The man on the street” was a good and once someone dove into a huge thing of jello…but I can’t remember who…it’ll come to me later!
I’m always intrigued to see the shades of “Today” imprinted on those earliest “Tonight” broadcasts. Note that news, weather and sports updates are touted as part of the “Tonight” package. I don’t know when those were dropped from the format. But boy, was that a different beast than that which “Tonight” evolved into.
Here is another rare record of the first 15. From July 2, 1962, a Monday show. That was the Spring/Summer between the end of Paar and the start of Carson. Guest hosts had been filling in during the interim in 1-4 week chunks. Skitch Henderson had returned to replace Paar’s bandleader Jose Melis, but Paar’s announcer Hugh Downs stayed with the show until his gig at Today started in September.
You see not only the 11:15 and 11:30 starts, but the 12:00 start as well. This episode was the start of the second of Lewis’s two weeks of guest hosting.
This is the first of several parts. Taken together, this recording represents one of the few episodes of original NYC-era Tonight to survive in its entirety. Though the original color 2-inch tape is long gone, this kinescope offers a fascinating insight into one of the most obscure portions of Tonight’s history.
http://youtu.be/jmNF01AXI1I
I made that NYE clip into a DVD for my technoligically-challenged mum earlier this year. It was side 2 of a dual-sided mini DVD, with side 1 being the clip I’ve attached, rescued from oblivion thanks to Nixon’s recording obsession and an early Umat deck.
https://youtu.be/Ifa0jXLLMug